Material handling system



April 19, 1938. w TQOHEY 2,114,728

MATERIAL HANDLING SYSTEM Filed Feb. 6, 1937 Patented Apr. 19, 1938 UNITED STATES PATEN OEFIE 1 Claim.

This invention relates to a material handling system for gathering and conveying numerous waste material such as dust, sawdust, shavings and other kinds of light and heavy materials ordinarily produced as a necessary by-product of machinery. The system comprises a conduit of uniform size and may extend to any desired length in a plant and which may be tapped at any desired points throughout its length by pipes which take up the waste materials and the like fro-m machines and direct them into said conduit from which they are conveyed to any desired point.

The invention consists of a novel construction and arrangement of the parts and combination of parts hereinafter more fully set forth in the following specification and pointed out in detail in the appended claim.

In the accompanying drawing:

Figure 1 is a side elevation of my invention, partly broken away.

Figure 2 is a top plan view of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a section on the line 33 of Figure 1.

Referring to the accompanying drawing, forming part of this specification, and in which like reference numerals designate like parts through out the several views thereof, 1 designates the main conduit to which the various waste producing machines 2 are connected by pipes 3. The material such as dust, sawdust, shavings, grindings, etc., passes from the machine 2 through the pipes 3 and is deposited in the conduit l. The said conduit 1 is tapered downwardly and has a screw conveyor 4 in the bottom thereof with its shaft 5 mounted in bearings 6 spaced throughout the said conduit. One end of the shaft 5 projects through the said conduit l and is driven by the motor '1 through the medium of the belt 8. At one end of the conduit I, and near the top thereof, is a suction pipe 9 which connects to the casing l!) of an exhaust fan which latter is driven by the motor l l. The lighter particles are drawn from the conduit 1 through the pipe 9 and pass out through the pipe 12 to the material collector l3, and the heavier particles which drop in the bottom of conduit I are carried along by the conveyor Q and fall into the recess 14 at one end of the conduit I and are drawn up through the pipe M by the use of the exhaust fan 16 and pass out through pipe 12 to the material collector l3, which may be located in any location, from which the collected material passes through pipe 16 to any desired location. At the opposite end of the conduit 1 is shown an exhaust fan ll, operated by a motor 18 which acts as a suction booster fan and may be located at any point on conduit 1. This fan 11 draws the lighter particles from the conduit 1 and discharges them through pipe 18 to dust collector I9, from which they pass through pipe 23 back to conduit l adjacent to conveyor 4, thereby keeping the lighter particles agitated and prevent packing thereof.

Having thus described my invention what I claim is:

In a material handling system, the combination of a conduit having tapering sides forming a narrow lower end, a screw conveyor mounted in the narrow lower end of said conduit, means for operating said conveyor, a number of pipes 30 communicating with said conduit each adapted to connect with a separate machine, a discharge pipe at one end of said conduit, an exhaust fan communicating with the said discharge pipe to cause the waste material to be I. discharged from the said conduit through said discharge pipe, an exhaust fan at the other end of the conveyor, and a pipe connecting the last mentioned exhaust fan with the said conduit.

JAMES W. TOOI-IE Y. 

